Succeeding at Airbus Headquarters

KOMPAS/BUDI SUWARNA

Falah Fachri, Nataniel Chandra, Martin Siagaan and Keiko Miyazaki (Japan), members of the Airfish team, are named runners up at the Airbus Fly Your Ideas event in Toulouse, France, Thursday (27/6/2019) evening. The event is an international “idea war” that this year is attended by more than 2,000 students from 89 countries.

Three Indonesian youths have triumphed at Airbus’ biennial “Fly Your Ideas” competition. Their idea on how to combat illegal fishing won them second place in the aircraft manufacturing giant’s international “battle of ideas”.

Indonesian MBA students Falah Fakhriyah, Martin Siagian and Nathaniel Chandra Harjanto, along with Japanese student Keiko Miyazaki, are members of the Airbus Integrated Fisheries Information Services (Airfish) from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.

When head juror Marc Fontaine announced that Airfish won second place in the Fly Your Ideas (FYI) competition, the four students screamed in joy while Falah and Miyazaki embraced in celebration.

“Alhamdulillah [Praise be to God] that we have won. Our hard work and sleepless nights have finally paid off,” Falah told Kompas on Thursday evening (27/6/2019) at Airbus headquarters in Toulouse, France. Falah graduated in 2010 with a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Indonesia department before matriculating to Cambridge.

Team Airfish lost to Team “Zero” Heroes from Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, which won the competition with their idea of a battery-less wireless switch for aircraft systems.

The FYI competition only awards the winner and runner-up; it offers no other winning places.

The finals involved seven teams from six universities in Europe and Argentina. All student teams were diverse, their members coming from Indonesia, Japan, India, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Argentina, Norway, the UK, Moldova and Greece. The seven teams reached the finals of the 2018-2019 FYI after defeating 270 teams that involved 2,265 students from universities in 89 countries.

The seven finalists had undergone tight competition through three elimination rounds to advance to the finals. The categories in this year’s FYI competition included the internet of things, electrification, cybersecurity, data services, artificial intelligence and mixed reality. Team Airfish was the only team that was not comprised of engineering students, but business students, even though its idea involved the use of satellite data.

“We did not think that we would win, as our team was the only one without engineering students. We had to explain about satellites and other things,” said Martin, who graduated in 2011 from the University of Indonesia’s industrial engineering department.

Nathaniel added that he and his teammates learned about satellite systems and imaging technologies so they could convince the jury. “We studied satellites for at least eight months,” said Nathaniel, who graduated in 2014 with a physical engineering degree from the Bandung Institute of Technology.

Illegal fishing

Team Airfish was praised for their confidence and high spirits in presenting their idea. Sandra Bour Schaeffer, who represented Airbus on the jury panel, joked, “I have rarely come across a high-spirited presentation about fish. Where did you get your idea?”

Team Airfish convinced the jury that illegal fishing was a pressing global issue, as it made the global capture fisheries industry unsustainable. This harmed many countries, including Indonesia. More importantly, illegal fishing threatened the environment and global food security.

The team continued, that the Indonesian government was serious about combating illegal fishing through legal prosecution and seizing and sinking illegal foreign fishing boats. However, such efforts needed the support of sophisticated surveillance that used satellites.

In fact, the Indonesian government uses satellite technology to prevent illegal fishing. The Lapan A2/Orari satellite, launched in 2015, is one such satellite used to capture the automatic identification system (AIS) signal that boats emit. Based on the ships’ movements, authorities are able to identify which boats are only passing by and which might be engaging in illegal fishing. The government also uses the satellites of other countries’ for similar purposes.

Team Airfish said that in order to improve the effectiveness of efforts to prevent illegal fishing, fish-producing countries should use micro-satellites. The team said that micro-satellites were cheaper and produced smaller data that could be processed quickly.

“Timing is an important issue in preventing illegal fishing. The quicker the data is obtained, the quicker the patrol boats can be notified of illegal fishing activities,” said Martin.

Nathaniel said that Airbus had the capability to participate in combating illegal fishing worldwide, as it had satellites and satellite data.

FYI head juror Marc Fontaine said that the seven finalists raised issues that were relevant to current developments. However, certain teams were better during their presentation. He praised Team Airfish for their confidence, zest and ambition.

The FYI competition has been held biennially since 2008. More than 20,000 students from 650 universities in more than 100 countries have participated in the event so far. The competition has been supported by UNESCO since 2012.

Team Airfish said they hoped that their concept for preventing illegal fishing would not end as a mere idea. “If the Indonesian government uses our concept, we would be overjoyed,” said Martin.